. . .Her mother knew, too, how hard she had always struggled to do something better; how she had studied drawing at the normal school when she was preparing to be a teacher; and how she had spent weeks in the elaboration of wall-paper patterns, which she had sent to the Decorative Art Society in Boston, only to have them returned to her in the same wrapper in which they had been mailed, with the indorsement "not suitable." That's why she didn't think she was going to be postmistress long. Far into the night these talks would continue-long after the other neighbors had gone to bed—nine o'clock maybe—sometimes as late as ten—an unheard-of thing in Taylorsville, where everybody was up at daylight.

Then one day an extraordinary thing happened—extraordinary so far as her modest post-office was concerned. A poster appeared on the wall of her office—a huge card, big as the top of a school desk, bearing in large type this legend: "Rock Creek Co. . . Read More